I vividly remember once visiting Atari Cambridge Research Labs with my friend Devon, and seeing a Star Wars cabinet with a huge bus of ribbon cables coming out of it and going to a Lisp Machine.

It left a huge indelible impression on me (as a committed “Star Wars Freak” who collected all the trading cards in elementary school and can still perform a great Chewbacca impression), although I never got to actually play that.

I did later have the console version of Star Wars in my garage in Mountain View though, but never owned a cabinet like the one at Atari Cambridge Research Labs, or a Lisp Machine to go with it!

I just found Bill St. Clair’s LinkedIn account and resume that mentions it:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wwstc/details/experience/

Lisp hacker, Atari Cambridge Research Lab
1984 - 1984 · Less than a year
Symbolics Lisp Machine code to use a Star Wars arcade game as a graphics output device,
6805 code loader, 3D turtles, maze game (jsMaze.com was my second try at this).

https://web.archive.org/web/20160315014835/https://lisplog.o...

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bill-stclair

https://billstclair.com/

That sounds like the most amazing job in the world! And it confirms that I was not just dreaming.

He also hacked lots of Lisp at places like Computer Interactive Services, Thinking Machines, Apple Computer, Digitool, Shaker Computer & Management Services, ITA Software, and Closure Associates.

Anybody remember what was up with that?

This document mentions lots of other cool stuff with Lisp Machines at Atari Cambridge Research Lab, but not the Star Wars machine:

https://tcm.computerhistory.org/CHMfiles/Atari%20Research%20...

But I can’t manage to find any more information about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18803966

DonHopkins on Jan 2, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: How Atari created the Star Wars arcade game (2017)

I saw an Atari Star Wars cockpit at Atari Cambridge Research Labs, with a huge mess of cables draping out of it, hooking it up to some other equipment.

Here are is a video playlist from Cynthia Solomon with demos of other cool stuff they did at Atari Cambridge Research, with Alan Kay, Margaret Minsky, David Levitt, Gumby, and other amazing people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR2CwKculBU&list=PL850B65ECB...

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.games.video.classic/c/WQ62u7...

Don Hopkins, Dec 8, 1992, 6:23:20 AM

en...@cs.montana.edu (Jacob Cormier) writes:

>Hasn't anyone here played Star Wars, the arcade game?!? It's the best! If I ever see that at an arcade again, I will whip out my credit card and buy it on the spot! I had a version for my Commidor64, but it was garbage.

My housemate brought home a Star Wars machine one day, and it became
an important part of our lives. A very well designed game! After you
blow up the Death Star, there's just enough time for bong hit.

-Don

Richard Stueven, Dec 8, 1992, 10:31:28 PM

In (an earlier article), (someone) wrote (something like) "In Star
Wars, after you blew up the Death Star, there was just enough time for
a bong hit."

In article 75...@ultb.isc.rit.edu, tjg...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu () writes:

>What is the bong hit in Star Wars?

Heh, heh. :-)

gak

Richard Stueven g...@wrs.com attmail!gakhaus!gak 107/H/3&4